The bloodsucker is back
Korotkikh - canceled yet promoted? Bucha, warhammer, neo-nazi infighting, stolen valor. Adventures of the (anti-)Russian agent.
There are few characters as compelling and ridiculous as Sergei Korotkikh.
And this week, our favorite Russo-Belarussian-Ukrainian neo-nazi, informant, money launderer, sicario, satanist, Russian double agent, and general international man of mystery has returned from relative reclusion. He’s now in charge of just-created and rather controversial assault troops branch of the army!
Many have been less than impressed by this development. Ukrainian MP Mariana Bezuhla implied that the creation of the assault troops branch is another example of why head of the army Oleksandr Syrsky is nicknamed ‘the Butcher’. Syrsky is often criticized for his fixation with pointless ‘meat assaults’ resulting in unnecessary losses among Ukrainian servicemen for irrelevant results.
Other soldiers have also been critical about the creation of the new army branch. The popular military blogger Stanislav Buniatov, commander of the nationalist Aidar Batallion, brought up the fact that the emblem of the assault forces is a snow leopard, ‘bars’ in Ukrainian. ‘Bars’ is also Syrsky’s own nickname. Very macho, very Korotkikh.
In another September 23 post, ‘Thoughts of a Frontliner’ laid out the following criticism:
Assault units will get the green light for new recruits. Defensive units will be left with whoever’s still standing.
Question: why launch assaults if there’s no one to hold the ground afterward?
— We’re losing territory because of a lack of manpower on the front lines, while at the same time burning through huge resources to retake positions we can’t keep.
Assault units are essential, at the very least to prevent the enemy from creating encirclements, but they need to be coordinated, well-trained formations — not just the scraps, which is usually how it ends up with us.
But anyway, enough of that. Onto today’s main character, the larger than life Sergei Korotkikh.
Korotkikh is a controversial figure, even among Ukrainian nationalists. I’ve written quite a bit on him. Two translations of interviews with him (here, and here), my own article on his pre-2022 story, and my translation and commentary on an article by a Ukrainian nationalist arguing that Korotkikh is a Russian deep agent.
Today, we’ll be taking a look at what his fantastical freak has been up to since 2022. He’s managed to survive quite a lot. First the trauma his sensitive soul must have suffered as one of first to visit the scene of the Bucha killings in March 2022. Then the endless callout posts by fellow neo-nazis accusing him of being a ‘tik tok soldier’. However, it seems that his excellent connections with the Ukrainian deep state have allowed him not only to endure, but to rise. But first, a few words on the man himself.
He’s gone through several aliases over the years - ‘Malyuta’ (in honour of Ivan the Terrible’s main torturer) when he was a money laundering nazi in Belarus and Russia, ‘Botsman’ (Boatswain) since his 2014 relocation to Ukraine. And as we’ll find out today, in wartime he’s even embraced a new name for himself - Bloodsucker.
He’s lived in no shortage of countries - Belarus, Russia, Cuba, Ecuador, unknown other latin American and ‘middle eastern’ nations, and now Ukraine. I’ve even come across the claim that he spends much of his time on a private island somewhere in the Caribbean. Perhaps he was transported to Ukraine in 2013 by a submarine piloted by Ghislaine Maxwell.
This man with many names has also had many allegiances. Though always faithful to his national socialist lodestar, he has been accused by fellow neo-nazis of working for both Belarussian and Russian law enforcement as an informant. He has been accused by both pro-western Israeli journalist Vladi Antonevich and the Russian government of responsibility for the shocking 2007 killing of two Muslim migrants, one of whom was decapitated on camera. Antonevich believes this whole story was concocted by nefarious Russian spooks, but that’s a whole different topic for another day.
Korotkikh has been closely cooperated with Ukraine’s ministry of internal affairs, particularly through his close friendship with interior minister Arsen Avakov’s son.
Where hasn’t Korotkikh been? Besides eastern Europe, he worked as a mercenary in the middle east and latin america in the early 2010s. During his time in the western hemisphere, he acquired an lifelong obsession for the satanism with sicario characteristics. In the 2022 photo below, Mr Korotkikh wears an Azov patch (right) with a Santa Muerte patch (left), the ‘religion’ favored by cartel members and death squads in Latin America. I wrote about these spiritual proclivities of his here.
His telegram channel is also quite overwhelming. In chronological order, you can see below Korotkikh’s theories about the true origin of covid, the impotence of NATO, the justness of racism, the invasion of the west by the muslim menace, and Bill Gates’ pronouncements on pandemics and the new world order - this is just from the past week. These are all topics very close to his heart. Not a day goes by without Korotkikh giving another opinion on them.
Korotkikh has enjoyed the status since 2014 as capo number two in Azov, Ukraine’s largest nationalist paramilitary. He put to work the skills he learned while in charge of the National Socialist Organization in 2000s Russia - besides murdering dozens of migrants, Korotkikh’s organization laundered over 50 million US dollars. Korotkikh’s Azov earned the same reputation - a gargantuan mafia structure specialized in racketeering, arms smuggling, and much more besides. It even calls itself a ‘family’.
But despite Korotkikh’s place in the patriotic Azov, many other nationalists and liberals have accused Korotkikh of playing a dastardly double game - a Russian deep agent sent to discredit Ukrainian nationalism from within. They enjoy pointing to the inordinate number of mysterious suicides of rival leaders in the Azov movement.
Some of the widows have accused Korotkikh himself of responsibility, as I wrote here. In that case, the six-foot victim ‘committed suicide’ by hanging himself naked, in front of a photo of his children. The widow believes Korotkikh organized the scene in such a manner to humiliate her late husband during the trial one final time. She has long since Ukraine for Canada out of fear of the murderous ‘leprechaun’, as the short, red-haired Korotkikh is often called.
Undoubtedly the most infamous mass murder incident associated with Korotkikh took place in early April, 2022 - the town of Bucha.
On April 1, the mayor of Bucha published a facebook video celebrating ‘the liberation of the town from Russian orcs’, which supposedly took place the day before (Russian sources claim that their troops left earlier). The mayor is cheerful in the video, which takes place from within the centre of Bucha. No mention of dead civilians on the streets.
On April 2, the national police announced that they had ‘cleared’ the city of Bucha of ‘saboteurs and accomplices of Russian troops’. Note the mention on the need to destroy ‘accomplices’ of the Russians. Again, no mention of Ukrainian civilians killed by Russia littering the streets. The long video published of the city also shows no corpses.
And then on April 3, the Botsman boys appeared to continue the work of ‘pushing the orcs out’ of the city. Korotkikh began posting photos of dead civilians in Bucha to his telegram, blaming the ‘Russian orcs’. The most famous video he posted can be seen below - in it, Korotkikh’s comrade in arms states:
The guys in the white arm bands, can we shoot at them?
Sure
Russian sources often point to the fact that Ukrainian forces wore blue armbands (as in the video), Russian forces wore red armbands, and civilians hoping to stay neutral wore white armbands. The dead civilians in Bucha shown by the media were wearing white armbands.
But anyway, I would hate to be carried away by speculations. For the fact-checkers in my audience, feel free to read Bellingcat’s defense of the official Bucha story (no mention of Mr Korotkikh, unfortunately).
Let’s move onto Korotkikh’s post-2022 story. Our ‘hero’ has been rejected by much of Ukraine’s neo-nazi movement. However, this hasn’t mattered much due to his lifelong talent of suckling at the teat of influential big men in law enforcement. A talent which has clearly worked, given this week’s momentous promotion.
Get ready for some truly groundbreaking neo-nazi infighting, featuring prison-style filmed rapes of each other, rape threats, and stolen valor accusations. There is also plenty of theorization on the nature of Korotkikh’s agenda in Ukraine as a Russian deep agent. We’ll end by taking a look at Korotkikh’s warhammer-inspired drone unit, ‘Khorne’.
The Korotkikh Crash-out
After being given Ukrainian citizenship in 2015 by president Poroshenko, Korotkikh got hard to work opening the immigration floodgates. One might think that would contradict his white supremacist views, but fear not - he was only interested in importing fellow Russian neo-nazis. Many of them joined his private army, known as the ‘Botsman Boys’.
